


All Too Well

by Sarah1281



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Behaving like rational people, Character Death Fix, F/M, Fix-It, Happy Ending, the truth comes out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-08 14:35:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah1281/pseuds/Sarah1281
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A twist of fate as Marius is slowly making it clear to Valjean that he would like it if his convict father-in-law stayed away makes him realize that something about his image of Valjean the murdering thief isn't quite right and causes him to take a second look at his actions and once more go searching for the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Doubts Planted

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a kink!meme prompt where M. Gillenormand finds this "Monsieur Jean" business very odd, catches Marius removing the chairs of the room where Valjean and Cosette meet in order to hint to Valjean that he is not welcome (when Valjean sees the missing chairs, he understands and never comes again), and forces him to face some hard truths before it's too late.

It was not that M. Gillenormand was fond of M. Fauchelevent, precisely. At his age, it was inordinately difficult to be fond of anything or anyone new. He was fond of his daughter, naturally, but she had been his constant companion for the past few decades. He was fond of his servants, those interchangeable faces all tied to their personas Basque and Nicolette.

He was fonder still of that little scamp of a grandson of his, Marius. He would have thought that 70 was a bit old to have fallen in love but the moment he saw that child he knew. He did not know that he knew then, of course, he was far too stubborn. Too stubborn and full of fresh grief for his daughter and resentful savagery towards George Pontmercy.

He had taken Marius for his own and done his very best to raise him but even that had not been enough to make him see. If he had understood exactly what Marius meant to him then how could he have thrown him out of the house over something as transient and inconsequential as politics? Strange how things changed. Politics had used to hold a rather lofty position in his mind and heart but Marius had so casually, so unknowingly replaced it and he could scarcely remember why it had ever been different.

He had not intended for Marius to stay away forever. He had not even intended for the fool boy to be gone for five years. He had rather expected that Marius would run out of money and return home, suitably chastened, within a week. Then Gillenormand would graciously forgive the boy his idiocy and things could go on much as they had before. But…he had been wrong. He had been very wrong. He should have known that George Pontmercy would seek his revenge at long last and taken away his grandson. Perhaps it was even fitting but it had not pleased Gillenormand one bit.

It still burned him, the knowledge that Marius was capable of getting by on his own without even accepting his money (why his fool of a daughter hadn't told him was beyond his understanding). He knew that he never would have seen his grandson again had it not been for Cosette. And what had he done with this chance, after waiting for Marius to return until his health started to fail from thwarted hope? He had squandered it, chasing the boy away again with his own misunderstanding of the situation.

There was nothing wrong with having a mistress, no matter what those young fools preached about 'sexual virtue', and it was a very good living for a girl of a certain class. Assuming, of course, that men did their duty and supported their mistress and any child she may bear him. But Marius was a romantic. He would marry his love or he would die. It sounded like a hyperbole of the dullest kind and it was still patently absurd but Marius had always been so passionate. Maybe he should have been exposed to girls earlier in life so that he wouldn't lose his head over the first one who looked his way.

But things had turned out for the best and Cosette was a fine prize indeed so it was really no bother.

Harder to face was that Marius was just like his father but, strangely, those same traits that had rendered George Pontmercy so odious to him made Marius all the more dear.

When he was faced with what he honestly believed was Marius' corpse, saved and reunited with him seemingly by chance, everything was suddenly, startlingly clear. Marius meant more to him than his life and if he wanted to marry some beggar off the street then at least Gillenormand had a house to offer them.

He could not deny that he was relieved that Cosette was such a charming creature with an even more charming dowry. He really had to learn to trust his clever, prevaricating grandson more. No doubt Marius had known the whole time and was just testing him by pretending otherwise. Well, he had finally passed that test.

It was surprisingly easy to grow fond of Cosette. She was a beautiful young lady, though, and he had always had such a wonderfully terrible weakness for them. She had also brought Marius back to him and Gillenormand knew how much Marius' regard for him depended on his own regard for Cosette. It was not fair, perhaps, but what about love ever was?

And that brought him back to Fauchelevent, Cosette's beloved father. It was most irregular for Cosette to come to call on Marius instead of the other way around but by the time that Marius was well enough to do that, they had all fallen into the habit of Cosette and her father coming to the house and no one felt like changing it.

With Marius and Cosette having so much difficulty in paying attention to other people when they were together (something characteristic of all young people in love but which would fade in time as their relationship progressed), he had spent much time talking to the father.

Gillenormand was too old to really grow fond of anyone he did not have to but he had grown used to the younger man. He was a rather pleasant acquaintance, never arguing or losing his patience. He smiled a lot and always seemed interested in whatever Gillenormand had to say. These past few weeks, he could not say that he missed Fauchelevent but he did feel a pang of annoyance at having had to have gotten used to something new and then having that abruptly taken away from him.

It had all started with the wedding, which had been a rather marvelous affair. All of Marius' friends had been dead and Cosette appeared to have not had any friends at all but she was eventually coaxed into inviting some suitable girls from that convent of hers and he had supplied the rest of the guests. Fauchelevent had elected not to move in with them though it was obvious that he wanted to.

With Cosette no longer needing to be escorted to see Marius, Fauchelevent did not need to be at the house as often but it was all very strange. Gillenormand did not pay enough attention to know how often the man visited but he only ever visited Cosette (perfectly natural that his main desire was to see his daughter but how strange, how rude, to never see the rest of them no matter how many times he was asked to dinner) and they met in the worst room in the house. It was a room that Gillenormand would be ashamed to show anybody, let alone his Marius' bride's father. Marius seemed to have taken no issue with it but, curiously, his jaw tightened whenever Fauchelevent's name was mentioned.

And then there was all this 'Monsieur Jean' business. If Ultime Fauchelevent had lived with Cosette and his brother – whose name Gillenormand simply did not recall – together all those years then why had the girl been under the impression that Ultime was her father and the other her uncle if it were really the other way around? The two of them lived together! It was not as if the uncle were raising her while the father was away! And why was Ultime Fauchelevent suddenly insisting on being called 'Jean'? More to the point, why was his own daughter or niece or whatever she was being forced to greet him like a stranger? He had asked her about it and she had looked terribly confused and explained that her father (though she had not called him that) did strange things all her life and there was really no point in trying to get him to explain.

No point, perhaps, but at his age what was better than a harmless little domestic mystery?

That day, he had been looking for Marius for completely unrelated reasons that quickly slipped his mind once he actually found his grandson. Basque had directed him down to that strange cellar room and the sight that met his old eyes was a very strange one. Marius was in the process of removing the chairs from the room. If Marius wanted those chairs gone, then Gillenormand had no issue with that but why did he do it personally when they had perfectly good servants to do it for him?

When Marius saw him, he dropped the chair in his hands with a guilty, furtive look. Curiouser and curiouser.

"Grandfather!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I was looking for you. Why are you removing all the furniture here? Has M. Fauchelevent finally come to his senses and decided to stop sneaking in to see his daughter like some kind of thief in the night?"

For some reason, Marius flinched at this.

"Can you…" he trailed off, looking lost. "Please don't say that to him or, God forbid, Cosette."

"I can hardly tell M. Fauchelevent anything, having not seen him since your wedding," Gillenormand said pointedly, "and I know how to speak to a lady."

He continued to stare at Marius until the boy realized that he hadn't answered the question and flushed.

"I…not exactly. That is to say, I hope – I don't know. We shall see. It is complicated."

He looked miserable.

Gillenormand wanted nothing more than to erase that misery from his grandson's face and to prevent it from ever returning but something told him that just leaving the matter there was not going to do it.

"What are you doing, Marius?" Gillenormand asked as gently as he was able to. "There are old chairs, chairs we neither need nor want in the rest of the house and we hardly need the pittance we might get from selling them! If Monsieur Fauchelevent were going to come elsewhere in the house or stop coming altogether then there would be no need to remove the furniture."

A tight, pinched look came to Marius' face. "Grandfather-"

"Tell me," he interrupted, his voice firm.

For a moment, it looked like Marius was going to refuse but then he slumped. Perhaps he wanted to confide in somebody after all.

"Monsieur Jean-"

He hated to discourage the boy but he couldn't help himself. "What is this 'Monsieur Jean' business? His name is Ultime Fauchelevent! I know that people are called things that stray greatly from their names, such as your Euphrasie Cosette, but this is ridiculous."

"He told me that he had never really liked his name and now that Cosette is gone from his life he may as well just call himself Jean. He has evidently always been rather eccentric," Marius replied after a moment's hesitation.

"Evidently!"

"And as for why he asked Cosette to call him 'Monsieur Jean', I could not tell you," Marius continued, anticipating the next question. "He is a rather retired man and perhaps if Cosette does not call him 'Monsieur Jean' then nobody would."

Gillenormand had long since retired from society but even he found that degree of isolation to be pathetic.

It was still strange, particularly why Fauchelevent wanted his daughter to call him 'Monsieur' even if he wanted to be called 'Jean', but he would not ask Marius to account for all of the eccentricities of another.

"But what about the chairs?"

"The chairs…" Marius trailed off, uncertainly. "Grandfather, you may have noticed that Monsieur Je-" He trailed off at Gillenormand's pointed look. "Oh, fine, Monsieur Fauchelevent and I were never on particularly good terms."

Gillenormand laughed. "I may have."

"I did not understand it, at first, but now I know that it was my instincts trying to warn me," Marius said solemnly.

Gillenormand laughed again.

Marius looked a little affronted at that.

"I'm sorry, Marius. Sometimes I forget that you're so inexperienced," Gillenormand said fondly.

"You were the one who raised me this way," Marius said a little testily.

"It is endearing," Gillenormand insisted. "It may cause you some problems in life but it is endearing nonetheless."

"What do you mean?" Marius asked.

"There is a long, proud tradition of young men not getting along with the fathers of the women they are courting," he explained. "Particularly if there is no intention of matrimony but, either way, fathers often feel that a suitor is not good enough for their daughter. Or perhaps that he has mischief on his mind or the father does not want to lose his daughter at all. Whatever the reason, the young lover and the old father are natural enemies."

Marius looked puzzled. "Are they really?"

"Trust me," Gillenormand said sagely. "They are. I have experience."

He had been the lover at various ages and the disapproving father. Even now he resented George Pontmercy for all that the man was long dead and had given him Marius.

"I…will take your word for it," Marius said slowly, awkwardly.

"But go on, tell me what you believe your instincts were warning you about," Gillenormand urged.

Marius appeared to be gathering his thoughts. "Monsieur Fauchelevent is…not a good man."

"Really?" Gillenormand asked, frowning. "He seemed perfectly pleasant and good-natured to me, if a bit on the dull side and I'm usually a pretty good judge of such things."

Marius sighed heavily. "I will admit that I was perfectly willing to ignore my instincts and leave the past in the past after my wedding. He came to me and I welcomed him as family, having every intention of moving him in that very day. If he had remained silent, I never would have known."

"But he did not."

Marius shook his head, looking suddenly tired. "He did not. It is to his credit that he told me the truth about him. He was concerned that Cosette not be exposed unnecessarily to one such as he. While she was unmarried it could not be helped but now he was free to withdraw from her life."

"I do not understand," Gillenormand admitted. "What is it that he has done that is so terrible?"

Marius jerked his head cagily. "Oh, it's not any one thing. He tries, I'll give him that, but it's just not enough. There are things about him that, now that I know, I simply cannot approve of. He was a poacher once, you know. Little things. Things that Cosette never saw but things that cast aspersions on his character. He was at the barricade, you know, and shot a man in cold blood!" He was breathing hard by the end of that little speech.

The barricade was always going to be a difficult subject for them. Marius might not say much about his political beliefs (what were they anyway? He had never been able to tell, just that they were no longer royalist and had led him to that damnable barricade) but he must still have them. And Gillenormand had finally come to the conclusion that a difference in political opinion was not enough to make someone dead to him but he could not readily change his long-held beliefs after such a long life, after '93.

Still, Marius appeared to be waiting for a reaction.

Carefully, Gillenormand ventured to ask, "I had been under the impression that the students had taken their fair share of life before the end."

"Oh, it's not that," Marius said impatiently. "I myself killed a few and it was literally kill them or allow them to kill us so I regret nothing about it."

"Then I'm afraid I do not see what the difference is between their actions – your actions – and the single kill that you attribute to Monsieur Fauchelevent," Gillenormand confessed.

"My actions were taken to save others. The actions of my friends were for the same reason and to try and bring about a new republic," Marius replied. "It was a fair fight. All of it was quite fair, if you ignore the fact that their numbers were far greater than we could have ever hoped to match. From what I remember, my friends all died fighting and defiant and so did the members of the National Guard. Javert did not."

"What happened?"

"He was our prisoner, you see," Marius explained. "He was a spy we had caught. We tied him up but we didn't kill him. We were going to trade him for one of our own but by the time we decided to try and send a message asking about a hostage exchange, Jehan Prouvaire was already executed. He had been captured and was murdered by the National Guard when he was helpless and they had no reason to have done that instead of having him arrested. And then Monsieur Fauchelevent does the same thing to Javert."

Gillenormand tried to keep up. "Because of what had been done to this Proverie fellow?"

"I do not know," Marius said, looking away. "But surely, even in a revolution, there must be rules! There must be standards. None of us, no matter how strongly we yearn for a republic, wish to see another Terror spring up. What Monsieur Fauchelevent did wasn't right and he offered no apology."

"I see."

"He asked me if I thought it a good idea for him to stay away from Cosette, he's not even her father, you know, but her uncle and I said that that would be for the best. She knows nothing of this, of course, she always believes the best of everybody and had a hard enough time with the realization that he wasn't her father after all," Marius continued. "But right before he left he stopped and begged me to let her see her sometimes, literally begged me."

"You must have said yes," Gillenormand said.

Marius nodded, miserably. "To my eternal shame, I consented. I told him that he could come every day. I knew that it was a bad idea but he just looked so desperate that I…I do not like to think of myself as a cruel man. An immediate separation would be cruel and hurt Cosette, as well. I expected that he would slowly wean himself off of visiting Cosette but you see that he has not. He literally comes every night and, if anything, the visits keep getting longer. If this goes on, who knows what might happen? He might forget himself entirely and try to remain around Cosette in a greater capacity or I might not be able to keep the truth of Monsieur Fauchelevent from her."

He looked beseechingly at his grandfather but Gillenormand remained silent.

"Don't you understand, sir? I'm acting in her best interests!"

"Oh absolutely, my boy," Gillenormand said quietly. "I don't think anyone else could understand you better - after all, that is exactly how I treated your own father."

That shook him and Marius staggered backwards as if he had been struck. "W-what?"

Marius evidently knew far more about the situation than he did and Gillenormand had sworn off trying to interfere in Marius' life after the disastrous consequences his attempts had brought about over the last few years. Marius would not do anything to hurt Cosette if he could help it and so he would not separate her from one that she loved lightly. He was also, as he had said, not a cruel man if occasionally a thoughtless one but he rather felt that that thoughtlessness was born out of his inexperience and would fix itself in time.

If he said that Fauchelevent was a bad man and needed to be kept from Cosette then he was probably right and Gillenormand would not fight him.

But he remembered all too well the day that he had discovered that his own similar actions with George Pontmercy had led to Marius disappearing from his life so completely that it had taken a miracle in the form of a massacre to rectify things. He had believed that he was acting in Marius' best interest then, keeping him away from such a degenerate as would fight for the pretender Buonoparte. Marius had felt otherwise and now, though he still hated the thought of George Pontmercy, Gillenormand had made peace with the fact that his own grandson held far more radical beliefs than his father ever had.

It was clear what was happening. Marius wished to make it painfully clear to Fauchelevent that he was not wanted and, in doing so, to convince him to start shortening his visits and eventually ceasing them altogether. It was much kinder than the way that Gillenormand had gone about it. There were no threats, no immediate separation, feelings were considered and the impetus to change was on the unsuitable party.

All of this was being done and kindly as such a thing could possibly be done.

He would just not have Marius go into this with his eyes closed. If it was what was best for Cosette then it was what was best for Cosette and must be done, for all that she would never agree if she knew. Cosette was the kind who forgave everything.

Marius just needed to be aware that when she found out (and for all he tried to keep this from her, Gillenormand was well-aware that the truth had a nasty habit of coming out sooner or later) she would be devastated and who knew how she would react? If she did not leave outright, for she was a woman without many options if she tried, then it might very well poison her love for him. Such sacrifices must be bourn for the good of those closest to them but it did no good to be blind about the potential consequences.

Aloud, he said, "If you'll permit me to bring up a painful memory, I once kept your loving father from you because I thought it was for the best."

Marius started pacing, looking quite disconcerted. "I-It's not the same."

"Perhaps not," Gillenormand agreed easily. "I do not pretend to know. But what I do know is that Cosette, having actually known and loved her father for many years, will be no less upset than you were should she find out."

"She won't," Marius said fiercely.

"You were never meant to, either," Gillenormand pointed out. "My mistakes cost me much, boy. When that policeman came to me the night the barricade fell and said that you were dead…he must have meant that he did not think that you would recover, of course, but I was in such a state that I really believed that you were lost to me. I would not wish such a fate on you."

Marius had frozen then. "I…the night of the barricade? A policeman brought me back?"

Gillenormand nodded vaguely. "And some man absolutely covered in filth. It was as if he had crawled through the sewers! I was not paying much attention to them but I doubt I would have been able to tell anything about that second man with all of that grime covering him. There was grime covering you, as well. It's a wonder that you are still here between the bullet and the filth!"

Marius was blinking rapidly, a look of dawning suspicion on his face. "But grandfather, the other man. The policeman. He was not so filthy that you could not describe him?"

Gillenormand shook his head. "He was not, no. I suppose he must have come to your aid after that other man was done dragging you through the sewers or pulling you through a river or something like that."

"What did he look like?" Marius demanded, actually trembling a little.

Gillenormand frowned, uncertain of why it really mattered. Yes, he knew that Marius was trying to find his mysterious savior (he had not come forward with what he remembered because 'he was too filthy to describe' was not going to be at all helpful) but it really seemed that he could simply go to the prefecture and ask there. Still, Marius did look like it was paining him not to know and so he described the officer as best he could.

Marius drew back then, pale as a ghost. "But that's…Javert."

That name sounded familiar. "The man that Monsieur Fauchelevent murdered?" he guessed.

"I had thought so," Marius replied shakily. "But now I don't even…I must speak with him. Tell Cosette that I am out but not where I am."

Gillenormand barely had time to acquiesce before Marius was running out of the room.

He sighed as he slowly made his way back upstairs, hoping that Marius would keep him apprised on the Fauchelevent situation. Young people just had so much energy. It was exhausting to watch them.


	2. Truths Divined

Marius somehow managed to charm the portress through his "obvious concern for poor, lonely Monsieur Fauchelevent." He may be married now but he still failed to understand women who were not his beloved wife or aunt.

He knocked twice on Valjean's door and heard movement going on in there. He quickly grew impatient, however, and rapped three more times.

Jean Valjean opened the door, looking surprised even before he laid eyes on Marius. He looked older than Marius remembered but there was life in him yet; he had seen Cosette the day before. "Ah! Monsieur Pontmercy."

He didn't look happy to see him. Was he uncomfortable around someone who knew the truth about him, or at least knew him as Valjean? Was he worried that something had befallen Cosette and, despite their differences, Marius had come to deliver the news personally? Had he noticed Marius' rather unsubtle attempts to get Valjean to stop coming to call and thought that Marius had given up on hints and was not going to just outright tell him to stay away?

Marius could hardly contain himself but he had had enough experience with a secret revolutionary society to know better than to have this conversation in the hallway where anybody could hear.

"May I come in?" he asked stiffly.

Valjean nodded. "Of course, of course."

He stepped aside to allow Marius to file inside. There was not much furniture in 7 Rue de l'Homme Armé but he still found a chair to seat himself upon.

Valjean sat down as well before starting and half-rising. "I have tea or-"

"That is quite alright," Marius interrupted, deciding to spare them both this mockery of civility. Depending on how things went, he might not appreciate having any obligation to stay for longer than it took to have this talk.

Valjean nodded uneasily and sat back down. "Then what are you here for, Monsieur Pontmercy?"

Monsieur Pontmercy. Madame Pontmercy. Valjean. It was absurd. This whole situation suddenly struck him as patently ridiculous. Who was this man anyway? And how had he managed to get tangled up in Marius' life, forcing him to deal with all of this?

"I have been told by a reliable source that you did not murder Inspector Javert," Marius said bluntly.

Valjean frowned. "I had not said that I had."

"It was not a part of your confession, no," Marius allowed. "But you did ask Enjolras for permission to be the one to execute him and you took him out to the back, fired a shot, and then returned. I took it as a given that that is what had transpired."

"I…had not expected you to remember that," Valjean said carefully. "Your memories of those events seemed rather…fragmented after you were so wounded."

Marius bowed his head. "My recollection of those events is far from perfect as you well know, having managed to convince me for a time that you were not even at the barricade at all."

"With my past, I hope you can understand why I would not like to further criminal activities on my part to be known, though we were officially pardoned some time ago."

That stopped Marius short. He knew that he had been pardoned, of course, and had resented it almost as fervently as he had been relieved by it but somehow he had never made the connection between that and the fact that his actions must have been criminal to have been pardoned. That was a disconcerting thought. He was not a criminal but he could have been one so easily had the king chosen a harsher way for dealing with the survivors.

"You killing Javert stuck with me because…" Marius trailed off, realizing that some sort of an explanation was in order. "You do not know this but I was neighbors with the Thénardiers back at the old Gorbeau House. I had fallen in love with Cosette by the time that you had brought her there but we had not yet properly met. I did not even know her name. I was paying attention to your encounter so that I might try and learn more about her. Right after you left, I heard Thénardier planning the events that occurred when you returned."

Valjean nodded, looking uncertain as to where he was going with this.

"What could I do?" Marius asked rhetorically. "I reported it to the police and the man that I spoke to was Inspector Javert. I understand now that, though your life was saved by Javert's arrival, it created a dangerous situation for you to be in. But Javert helped me and indirectly helped Cosette and so I was grateful to him. I did not realize that the police spy to be executed at our barricade was the man whose debt I was in but once I did I attempted to talk some sense into you and save him. Before I made my way to you, however, I heard the shot."

"I had to fire," Valjean said quietly. "Your friends were men of strong convictions. Pretending to have shot him was the only way that Javert would have been allowed to leave the barricade alive."

"I am sure that you can appreciate how hard it is to associate the events of the barricade, which even now I can recall only as if in a dream, with the normal life I've known since then," Marius continued. "And so I allowed myself to forget that you were even there until I learned of your past. Then I believed that the reason you asked to kill Javert was to take your revenge and to ensure your safety from such a competent and diligent pursuer. I was wrong and I-I'm sorry."

"Do not apologize!" Valjean burst out, looking deeply uncomfortable. "You have done nothing wrong. It was a perfectly reasonable belief and I had caused you to believe that I had killed Javert. You are a fair man, Monsieur Pontmercy, and would not have believed that without cause. You cannot possibly be blamed for believing my deceit. Had things been different, it may very well have transpired that way."

"But it did not," Marius said firmly. "No matter what else you may have done, you are not a murderer and it was unjust of me to assume that you were. I had no problem with your actions when I thought that you had killed him, helpless and bound as he was, in the name of our revolution and I have no problems with the lives that I have taken. When I thought your deed was out of revenge…whatever you may say I know that I have wronged you and so I apologize."

At this point, Valjean was looking almost pained. "I maintain that you have nothing to apologize for but if you seek my forgiveness then you shall have it."

Was that the easy forgiveness of a good man or a man so used to doing wrong that he could not possibly hold anything against anybody? Marius bowed his head. "I thank you."

Valjean remained silent.

"What became of Javert if you did not kill him?" Marius asked. "Or do you not know?"

"I…do not know precisely," Valjean said slowly. "I encountered him again after the barricade. I had given him my address so it was not, perhaps, surprising that I did. He said that he would allow me a moment to say my goodbyes to Madame Pontmercy but when I glanced down at the street he was gone. I later read in the paper that he had thrown himself into the Seine. They speculated that he had gone mad. He had been working to arrest me whenever he caught my scent for over ten years but then he finally had me and I would have gone with him and…He just let me go and evidently told no one that I yet lived or where I could be found. Perhaps he was mad."

"I think we were all a little mad that day," Marius said quietly. Hadn't suicide been on his own mind that day? It was so alien and repugnant to him now but it had been the case then. He could not judge.

Why had Valjean given Javert his address when he had freed him? Surely that had not been necessary. Wouldn't that disgrace Cosette? Marius did not know much of arrests, not the way that Valjean would. Perhaps Valjean counted on facing prison but with his Fauchelevent identity not being exposed. Cosette would be fine with her healthy dowry even if he himself had not survived the barricade.

Was telling Javert done for the same reason that he had told Marius of his crimes? A desire to protect Cosette and perhaps even a desire to further punish himself for past transgressions? A desire to be punished did not prove goodness or show that such sins would not continue to happen. None of this proved anything but Javert had not died at the barricade and Valjean had not brought this up in his defense.

That had to mean something but what, exactly, it meant he could not be sure of.

"Is there anything else that I might think that you are guilty of but you did not actually do?" Marius asked suddenly. "Any further acts of goodness or mercy that must be taken into account?"

Valjean looked away. But that could be a yes or a no. Why was this man being so difficult? Didn't he want Marius to think better of him for the sake of being allowed to see Cosette?

"I discovered that Javert did not die because my grandfather says that he was one of two men who brought me home that night," Marius informed him. There was no need to specify which night, of course. "Though the other man was obscured by a thick covering of sewer grime. Do you know anything of this?"

Valjean looked suitably surprised but that was easy enough to fake. But why would he lie about something like this? Why had he continued to lie about Javert? Surely he wouldn't have thought that Marius would have executed him months after the fall of the barricade! "How could I?"

"That is not a no."

"No, then, this is the first I am hearing of this," Valjean amended. Marius was beginning to notice that he rarely answered a question directly.

Marius stared at him intently.

Valjean began to fidget. "Why do you stare so?"

"I am trying to decide if I believe that," Marius said honestly.

"You have asked and I have answered," Valjean said stiffly. "Why is my word not enough?"

The words struck Marius as grimly humorous and he only just managed to bite back a laugh. "Well you are a convict. Doubting the word of a convict is so ubiquitous in our society that you would not even be allowed to testify under oath."

"Be that as it may," Valjean replied after a moment with an air of strained calm, "I did not lie to you about who I was. I may have no desire to return to Toulon but the moment I could safely tell you the truth about myself without risking Cosette's future – that is, Madame Pontmercy's – I did so."

That fairly enraged him and his jaw worked for several seconds before he trusted himself to speak. "I wouldn't care if you were secretly Louis XVIII! Nothing would have stopped me from marrying my Cosette."

"I am glad to hear that," Valjean said gently. "I did not want to make you marrying your love to be any sort of a struggle. You both deserved better than that and I would not cause more distress if I can help it."

"I suppose I should thank you for your consideration, then," Marius said grudgingly. He did resent Valjean's apparent belief that his love for Cosette was not strong enough to withstand whatever obstacles insisted on jumping into his path. For God's sake, she could have been as poor as Éponine and he'd still have wed her. He loved Cosette, not some symbol of ideal upper-class womanhood!

Valjean nodded jerkily.

"You have lied to me, though. You said you were not at the barricade and you were. You said you killed Javert and you did not. And you certainly never indicated your criminal past to me until after the wedding. Even without taking your past into consideration, I have reason to doubt your word," Marius said bluntly.

"I did not lie, precisely," Valjean insisted. "I implied and let you assume what you would."

"I asked if you knew the street that the barricade was on and you pretended you had never heard of it."

Valjean coughed. "That was not a denial of having been at the barricade."

Marius just shook his head at how this man's mind apparently worked. "You say you met Javert. You were at the barricade. Someone from the barricade must have brought me home. It could not have been a member of the National Guard because they were slaughtering everybody, because they would not have needed to take me through the sewer, because they would have left a name. Is it a coincidence that we two are the only survivors of that barricade? Is it a coincidence that I have discovered your strange reluctance to admit to things that paint you in a good light?"

"It must be."

Marius lost his patience and slammed his hand down upon his knee. "Damn it, man, why will you not concede to the obvious? No one else had any reason to bring me in particular back home! If it was someone who wanted to curry favor with my grandfather then they would have stayed or at least come back later when they were decent and given a name! And do not think that I have forgotten how easy you made a marriage that might have otherwise been very difficult indeed!"

Despite the fact that he had not seriously considered the possibility before today, he found that his words were convincing. Who else besides the man he inexplicably let go after hunting for more than a decade would someone so anti-revolutionary as Javert as to be a spy in their ranks be persuaded to rescue a dying revolutionary for? And he really had no other ideas so this had to be his savior.

Valjean sat in stubborn silence.

"I do not understand you," Marius said tiredly. "Why will you not take credit for the good you have done? You make me wonder if you're forgetting to mention that, after your time in Toulon, you were pardoned after all this and became intimate friends with Javert or something of the sort."

Valjean choked at that. "Nothing like that, I assure you, though in light of…the why is not important but a former king did commute my death sentence to life imprisonment."

"I know that I am not a subtle man," Marius said quietly. "You must have realized that I have not made you particularly welcome in my home these past few days. In fact, I have rather been trying to drive you away without having to actually say the words."

Valjean immediately tensed. "I may have had a feeling though I had refused to acknowledge it. I can spend less time there, Monsieur Pontmercy, maybe only come once a week instead of every day. I just do not know that I have it within me to live without your wife completely. Perhaps that is selfish, to force myself upon a couple who is young and happy and so clearly does not want me. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I should stop coming."

Marius shut his eyes against these words. That was another reason he had not confronted Valjean and asked him to stop coming, even before he had learned of Javert's role in his rescue. He had not intended to allow Valjean to visit at all after his confession and yet his clear and desperate need to see Cosette tore at his heart until he found himself promising he may visit every night. He was afraid that he would not have had the strength to deny him Cosette if he tried to take her from him completely.

And now…

"Let us stop this nonsense about you not having saved me," Marius said with a confidence that he did not fully feel. "You did it with Javert's help and I know that now. Before I knew that, I was trying to drive you away. I never would have done that had I known. Even if I believed you to be the scum of the Earth, I know that you have been careful to keep Cosette pure and innocent so there was no danger on that account. And I honor my debts, Monsieur. Why did you not tell me? All of this could have been avoided!"

Valjean looked as though he were going to continue to argue before his shoulders abruptly slumped. "Because I thought as you do. I thought that you were in the right. It was necessary that I should go away. If you had known about that affair, of the sewer, you would have made me remain near you. I was therefore forced to hold my peace. If I had spoken, it would have caused embarrassment in every way."

"It would have embarrassed what? Embarrassed whom?" Marius demanded. "You told me yourself that there is no real danger of you being apprehended since everyone believes that you are dead. And if, as you suggested, someone might recognize you after all – which I find to be highly unlikely – then that is when we will call upon my grandfather to get a pardon for you and all will be forgiven. There would be no embarrassment."

"No embarrassment?" repeated Valjean. "I would be a convict living with a respectable baron and his family! The world need not be aware for the embarrassment to occur."

"And I tell you now that there would be no embarrassment at all," Marius disagreed. "Because this convict saves lives when it goes against all logic to do so. He saved mine. If you once stole some bread, well, you did your time and more besides! The only remaining question I have is who is Monsieur Madeleine?"

Valjean could not be a completely good man if he had stolen six hundred thousand francs from another ex-convict like himself who had worked hard and made the lives of everyone around him better but perhaps…if it was so long ago and Valjean had not actually spent any of it then given it to Cosette…perhaps it was proof that he had repented since then and was not such a bad man anymore. He could still not bring himself to live off of stolen money and he could not give it to the long-dead Madeleine who appeared to have no heirs but it seemed appropriate to distribute the money to the poor and try to improve their lives, the way that Madeleine undoubtedly would have wished with the millions of francs he had given in his lifetime.

Shock flooded Valjean's face. "Madeleine," he whispered, almost fondly. "That is…a ghost from quite some time ago."

Emboldened by this clear sign of success, Marius pressed on. "I know that that is where Cosette's dowry came from. Please. I need to know."

"I gave up that name in a court in Arras when there was another man who would spend life in prison in my place," Valjean said hollowly. "I would like to say that I never would have fallen so far as to let an innocent face my fate for me but…even then I could barely bring myself to go and fought against my own success every step of my journey. I did not stay to be arrested and tried to flee but I was caught. I managed to hide those six hundred francs I had reserved for myself and once I took in Cosette it all seemed perfectly natural that that money should be hers. She is so much more deserving of it than I ever was."

Two things became readily apparent to Marius just then. The first was that Valjean never would have admitted to this had he not already believed, from the way that Marius had phrased his plea for an explanation, that Marius had already realized that he was Madeleine all along. The second was that he was a fool for not having seen it sooner. Yes, he had investigated a little and been falsely informed by someone whom he had trusted (someone who, perhaps, honestly believed that they were speaking the truth), but he had been mistaken.

It all made sense. Madeleine had 'died' to save the life of a sailor and Valjean had somehow escaped prison by faking his death or had at least faked his death convincingly in front of witnesses while released to stop his pursuit. How better to fake one's death than by falling into the sea and 'drowning'? And the description of Madeleine as an ex-convict who became a good man obsessed with giving to charity…hadn't that been how Cosette had described her father (apart from the bits she did not, could not know)? He had a hard enough time understanding that one convict could be such a man, let alone two who had encountered each other! And what made more sense, that saintly ex-convict Madeleine was somehow robbed by another good ex-convict or that they were one and the same?

"Oh, I am a fool," Marius murmured bitterly.

"You are not," Valjean said immediately. He didn't even know what Marius was referring to and yet he was so sure.

That just made it worse.


	3. To Move a Mountain

"I had thought you stole that money from Madeleine," Marius admitted quietly.

Equally quietly, Valjean admitted, "I had a suspicion of that fact but I couldn't admit it to myself as there was no easy way to fix that misapprehension if you would not trust my word. And I was not being entirely truthful when I said that the money had been entrusted to me. But the money was legally earned, with the slight irregularity of my needing to adopt an alias in order to have been in a position to own a factory, and now it is Co-Madame Pontmercy's."

"I know that now," Marius told him. "And, though I was misinformed, I would not have gone looking for the source of the money if I had not already had my suspicions."

Valjean smiled sadly and spread his hands. "I am a thief. It would almost have been negligent for you not to investigate."

"You keep saying that you are a thief but are you, really?" Marius asked thoughtfully. "You stole a few things once years ago but does that forever brand you a thief? According to our king, I was a traitor on that barricade. Am I a traitor forever? I don't see myself that way."

"You were pardoned," Valjean pointed out.

"We could go speak to my grandfather right now and get you a pardon by the end of the week," Marius countered.

"That really isn't necessary-" Valjean started to say.

"If you will deny yourself the free pardon that I am offering then you cannot act as though my pardon cancels out my crime and your lack of a pardon condemns you forever," Marius said pointedly. "Your initial crime must have been long before I was born and since then you saved my life! I cannot possibly just dismiss you as a convict now."

"Good deeds cannot cancel out bad deeds," Valjean told him.

"No more than bad deeds cancel out good deeds, which is something that you seem to believe at least when it comes to yourself," Marius argued. "And you say that you kept quiet because you thought as I do and knew that if I knew the truth that I would not feel that way? You agree with my opinion formed based on faulty information. The fact that you knew you had to hide the truth from me just goes to show how ridiculous this line of thinking is. I would not believe you were a disgrace or an embarrassment and should be kept away if I knew. Now that I do know, I do not feel that way."

"You do not know what I was in Toulon," Valjean said, his face haunted. "I would not say that I was all that different from Thénardier and you've seen what he is. I think I was probably worse. From what I know of that man, he is cruel and vile but his every act is designed to benefit himself in some way. If there were a dog in the street and he would not benefit from kicking it then he would not kick it. If he thought it would benefit him, he might even pet that dog or give it something to eat."

Marius grimaced. He was now thoroughly disillusioned about his father's savior and it burned him to be in the debt of that man. Yes he had given the man more money so that he could afford and sacrificed his principles by going into debt to do so but was that enough? Five francs a week for a life? For a man who had done more for his father than Marius ever had? He did not think it was sufficient but now that the man had escaped from prison and was a fugitive, they were unlikely to ever come across each other again. Thénardier was possibly a fugitive before when he was 'Jondrette' but then Marius had only come across him and discovered his true identity by chance. And Éponine was dead, too, so he really had no further ties to him.

"I was different. I stole from a saintly bishop and a desperately poor child. I do not even know which of those was worse. I hated the world and just wanted to hurt somebody, anybody, to try and take revenge for the iniquitous treatment I was given. I might have ignored the dog or I may have kicked or even stabbed it. I was violent and unpredictable and a danger to everyone around me. The bishop I mentioned, the one that I robbed, was the first person to have been kind to me in twenty years. I literally went through the entire town seeking some sort of shelter and was turned out everywhere. My life was threatened. I asked only for table scraps and a place in the stables, by the animals, and I was seated at the table like a guest of honor. I received the same food as they did and white sheets on my first bed in nineteen years, in a room right next door to the bishop's. He knew what I was but he did not even shut his bedroom door! He did not lock up his silver! I stood watching that man who had treated me better than anyone else ever had and I was torn between kissing his hand and crushing his skull."

Marius couldn't suppress a shudder at the sheer horror of those words.

Valjean smiled wanly. "See? I was no better than an animal."

"I would not…" Marius paused and gathered his thoughts. "I would not want anything to do with the man that you descried. But I don't see anything of him in you."

Valjean was shaking his head. "I was that man. I have that man in me always."

Marius could believe that as he had already believed some pretty terrible things about this man before him. He had never liked him…but that wasn't true, was it? Long before he had ever cared anything for Cosette (how could he have gazed upon her daily for so long and thought nothing of her?) he had liked the look of Valjean. He had respected him. But then once he fell in love with Cosette his feelings towards Valjean had changed and he hadn't even noticed. Perhaps his grandfather had a point about natural enemies. He had felt much more at ease with Valjean after his engagement when the war, so to speak, was over and downright amiable towards him after the marriage was done.

And now it was hard to dislike a man when he was being so unnecessarily severe about himself and Marius had inadvertently added to that.

"You are not that man anymore," Marius said firmly.

"I try not to be," Valjean said vaguely.

"When was the last time you considered murdering a man who had been nothing but kind to you?" Marius challenged.

"It has been a few years, yes," Valjean conceded. "But surely it takes more than a lack of murderous desire to make you a good person."

"I know that I do not want to be known for my past actions forever even now, at twenty-three, and I can imagine it will only get worse," Marius said thoughtfully. "And I don't think I've done anything too heinous, either. I need to not be a hypocrite about this. It is fair and proper to judge people for who they are but not who they were too many years ago to matter. Some crimes I do not know if I could ever move past but wanting to kill? Theft on such a small scale? I can forgive that, if you feel that it still needs forgiving."

It was difficult to describe the look on Valjean's face. Though it was his words that seemed to inspire this, he felt like he was intruding on something intensely private.

"You do not know what you say," Valjean whispered thickly.

Marius fought the urge to squirm. This was a difficult realization for him to come to but now that he was here it felt as natural as anything. But given how Valjean had behaved throughout all of this…were Marius' own clumsy attempts to get through to his father-in-law the first time anyway had ever told him these things? What about that bishop of his?

"I do," Marius said firmly. "You did not kill Javert when you had every reason to. You took a huge risk to save him and even told him how to find you. You gave everything you had to Cosette. I've heard so many good things about Madeleine that I have difficulty believing it all. Cosette has nothing but wonderful things to say about you and your philanthropy. You went far, far beyond what anyone else would ever expect to save my life and give me the best life I could have with your daughter. Perhaps that dangerous man is still part of you somewhere but you are a good man now and I will not ignore that. I will not let you ignore it, either."

"That is a very pretty picture you paint, Monsieur Pontmercy," Valjean said softly. "But you know how the world works."

"I know that we've already discussed how safe you are and the pardon with your name on it the moment it becomes necessary," Marius reminded him.

"I do not know what you want me to say," Valjean said honestly. "If your improved opinion of me means that I will continue to be allowed to see Madame Pontmercy then that is enough for me."

"That is not enough!" Marius exclaimed.

Valjean just looked at him.

"I'm sure that you have noticed that Cosette is not the type of woman to do anything to make anyone else miserable under any circumstances," Marius began.

Valjean bowed his head. "She has known too much misery to ever knowingly spread it to another."

"This extends so far that she is willing to try and hide her own misery so that her pain might not upset anyone else around her," he continued. "Now I am honestly torn about how I feel about this. On the one hand, I love that she cares so much for other people and is so good – your influence, no doubt – that she wishes to protect them from her own unhappiness. On the other, I would not see her unhappy and her hiding her pain makes it difficult for me to tell when she is unhappy. I believe that I am starting to recognize the signs, however."

"That is good," Valjean told him. "You will be able to make her happier than anyone."

"She has been very unhappy as of late," Marius said bluntly. "She has been happy to be married and to be with me at long last but she has been almost equally unhappy, careful as she was to conceal it."

An alarmed look crossed Valjean's face. "Why?"

"She misses you," Marius said simply.

Valjean's eyes were shadowed. "I have come to see her nearly every day."

"You meet with her for a few minutes in the dingiest room in the house until someone makes her come upstairs for dinner," Marius replied. "You will not move in and you have even prevented her from calling you 'Papa' anymore. And, more than that, you will not tell her why. She said that you went away when she tried to ask, that first time you came to see her after the wedding."

Valjean sighed heavily. "You know why."

"I do, yes, though I have come to seriously reconsider the wisdom of any of that."

"She is forgetting me," Valjean said with terrible confidence. "When you went to the Rue Plumet and I did not see her, she did not notice that we had not met. She only called me 'Papa' once since I requested her not to. She refrained from calling me 'Monsieur Jean' at first but she has begun doing that, as well. If I just stopped coming altogether…" he trailed off, a terribly pained look on his face before he steeled himself and continued. "If I just stopped coming altogether I do not doubt that it would be a simple thing for her to move past me."

Marius sat there for a moment as the words of his victory washed over him, now seeming unbearably cruel when they had been specifically designed to be kind. And he had not even mentioned the fire or the chairs and he had to have noticed them. Cosette had noticed the fire and said that Valjean had asked for it not to be lit. If he knew enough to claim responsibility then he had to have understood. But he was too kind to say it.

"I do not know if you do more discredit to yourself or your daughter, Monsieur," he said at last.

Valjean started at that and Marius vaguely wondered which part of that sentence was the most difficult for him.

He was not surprised at what part of it Valjean chose to dispute, however. "I would never insult Madame Pontmercy. I know that she loves me still and I do not mean to suggest that her love is such a fickle thing. But she is young and newly married and free. Her life has no room for sadness or for tired old men whose time has long since past."

"Monsieur," Marius said again, "how old are you?"

"What?"

"How old are you?" Marius patiently repeated. It was really not that odd of a question though one would think Valjean had never been asked it before. Was his Fauchelevent alias born in another year? That would be prudent.

Valjean cocked his head back. "I was born sometime in 1769 so that would make me sixty-three."

Marius' eyes widened. He had known that Valjean had aged some but he still did not look sixty-three and for most of the time he had known him he appeared in his early fifties, even with the white hair. That would certainly help keep the police off of his trail.

"My grandfather is ninety-three," Marius informed him. "And he is still healthy as a horse. I believe that it is safe to say that you have lived a harder life than he but until you have travelled this Earth another three decades I don't want to hear anything more about how old and tired you are."

Valjean managed a small smile at this. "That is so easy to say at twenty-three."

"I will be saying it at sixty-three and you may very well be there to see it," Marius replied.

"You said I only had to wait three decades and that would be four," Valjean pointed out.

"Monsieur, you are very welcome to live forever."

Valjean shook his head. "To live forever! What a thought."

"Cosette has not forgotten you half as much as you think," Marius said softly. "It is true that she had not noticed that she did not see you for one night while we were busy but it was just the one night after having seen you every other day. There are plenty of things that I do every day that I might not notice if one day I did not do. And she told me the next day how she looked forward to telling you all about our trip."

"She was very excited," Valjean said fondly. "I was pleased to see her so happy. It reminded me that I was making the right decision."

"The right decision to let her marry me, absolutely," Marius agreed. "As for the rest, I cannot agree. Did you know that I have only seen my wife cry twice?"

Valjean flinched.

"The first was a few nights before the barricade, perhaps the second or third of June," Marius informed him. "She had just found out that the two of you were leaving France and that we were to be separated."

"I did not know about you," Valjean said, somewhat awkwardly. "I never would have told her that we were going so far away if I had known."

Marius suspected that Valjean would have liked to but, given the evidence he had, he agreed that Valjean probably would not have been able to go through with it.

"She asked me to come with her and I told her that I could not. I was poor then, you see, and these things take money," he continued. "I did have one other idea, though. I was going to ask my grandfather for permission to marry her. I would have needed your permission as well but, though we had never met and you did not know that I was courting your daughter, somehow I thought my grandfather would be the more difficult to convince. Well, I showed up for the first time in five years with no apology but a request to marry a girl I thought dowry-less…It did not go well. He told me later that he tried to go after me and give me his blessing but he was ninety-two at the time and I had not intended to stay there any longer than necessary. I could not tell Cosette that I was going there and give her hope if there was none to be had and so I told her that I was going to try something and watched her weep, knowing that there was very little I could do and that might be the last time I ever saw her. It broke my heart."

"I have seen her weep too often," Valjean said heavily. "Mostly when she was a child. She is of a joyful disposition but she has known much pain as well. I would give anything not to see her weep again."

"That is what I thought at the time, even through my own rising panic at the thought of losing her," Marius said, nodding at him. "But then two nights after our wedding I held her as she cried herself to sleep."

"Why?"

"She had never expected to be parted from you while you both lived," Marius explained. "We hadn't really considered the idea of marriage until I asked my grandfather about it and then there was no time until the matter was moving forward. But she told me from the very beginning that she wanted you to come live with us and we had such a big house and you meant so much to her that I-I agreed. And you had never actually told her no before the wedding."

"I could not," Valjean told him. "She would have just tried to change my mind and I did not have the strength to debate the matter."

Marius nodded his understanding. "And then not only did she find out that you were not going to be moving in after all but that you insisted on coming to see her in the worst room in the house. You insisted on calling her 'Madame' and would not let her address you as father. And then, when she sought some sort of an explanation, you left after only a few minutes."

"What could I say?" Valjean asked rhetorically. "What sort of explanation would have satisfied her when I could not tell her the truth? And I could not have stayed there for another moment without my resolve crumbling."

"She didn't understand. She said it felt like you no longer cared for her or were trying to punish her and it broke her heart. She said that she could not accept it but that she knew she had no choice because you had never explained yourself to her and now you could just go away and not come back if she kept asking. She knew that she had to just go along with it if she wanted things to go better than you leaving after just a few minutes. I helped her come to these conclusions but there was really not much else I could have said, either, just that she should respect your wishes. Perhaps if she had kept asking and you had kept leaving it would have separated the two of you faster but the separation was never supposed to be cruel and perhaps her pushing would have overwhelmed your restraint."

"It might have," Valjean agreed. "And believe me when I say that I understand the need for a separation. I understood it when I told you of my past but I was not strong enough then to go through with it completely. What you have done, gently reminding me of what I needed to do, that was not cruel."

"It was perhaps the kindest way such a thing could be done," Marius allowed. "I had given this matter a great deal of thought. But I was needlessly separating two good people who loved each other and there is always an element of cruelty in that, no matter how kindly meant."

"There were reasons," Valjean insisted, shaking his head. "You keep forgetting that there were and still are some very valid reasons for us to be kept apart."

"Let us not go over the nonexistent danger of you being discovered after all this time again!" Marius exclaimed. "And you have raised her for many years now, I think you said it was nearly ten? In all that time you could have molded her into anything and you raised her to be my wonderful angel. I always knew that this meant that you were no danger to Cosette, whatever else you may have been."

"I do not know how much a part I played in raising Cos-Madame Pontmercy to be the angelic being she is today," Valjean said wistfully. "I certainly raised her to be nothing like me. At most, I kept her away from evil influences but I must think that the sisters at the convent had a bigger impact on her development. For several years, I only saw her an hour a day as the convent did not approve of too much family contact."

"Monsieur, I have never met a more generous or forgiving soul than Cosette and if you really don't believe that she got any of that from you," Marius shook his head. "How can you be so blind to yourself!"

"I am not," Valjean disagreed. "I just see a fuller picture than you. You had thought me a murderer and a thief more times than I was. Now there is a void in your opinion of me and you are dazzled by Madeleine's deeds."

"But you are Madeleine," Marius pointed out. "I do not see why I should not be able to take it into consideration!"

"The problem is that you may think you know what it means to have been to Toulon but you cannot properly understand it and you are just brushing that bit aside as irrelevant," Valjean said patiently.

"After nineteen years served there, how can it possibly be relevant anymore?" Marius asked incredulously.

But Valjean shook his head. "I do not speak of my initial crime, of course I did not deserve even the five years there that I was initially sentenced to. I am referring to that terrible man who hated everything from himself to God above and who would surely have gone on to do even more terrible things had not a miraculous intervention occurred so soon after his parole."

"Well if Toulon made you into that when you weren't before I don't see how I can blame you for it," Marius said, shuddering at the thought of that place. "I don't wager that I would fare much better if you threw me in there for the next two decades!"

"Does it always matter who is to blame when the end result is so vile?" Valjean asked. "It was who I was and it was not right and so some atonement must be made. That was what Madeleine was, you see, atonement. And even then I made mistakes and ruined lives. It seems that there will never be an end to things that I must apologize for!"

"And you do, you really do," Marius insisted. "All of your good works, raising Cosette…I will not ask what circumstances led to you coming across her and raising her, why you speak of such pain in her past. She does not remember it and it no longer hurts her. Nothing will change my love for her but I do not see the point in bringing these ghosts back instead of letting them die. You must have saved her life, Monsieur, and for that alone I would say you had done enough. But why must you suffer so while saving everyone else?"

"I do not suffer," Valjean denied.

The look Marius gave him showed what he thought of that. "Even if you do not need material possessions, I found myself quite happy while poor for years, you said the only thing that you really need is to have Cosette in your life and you deprive yourself of most of the time you could share with her. Do not say that you would be in the way because my grandfather and aunt live with us as well and they've never been in the way at all."

"You do not understand," Valjean said, looking away.

"No," Marius conceded. "And neither do you. And, more importantly, Cosette does not understand either and I am through breaking her heart over this."

Valjean's eyes were suddenly hooded with suspicion. "What do you mean?"

"If you refuse to come live with us, if you refuse to be a father to her anymore, if you even go so far as to refuse to see her then I will not have her in the dark about the reason why. She will only blame herself," Marius declared.

Valjean gripped the chair he was sitting on tightly. "You would not tell her. You promised me that you would not!"

"I made my first vow to Cosette," Marius said coolly. "And believe me when I say that this is in her best interest."

Marius would not truly tell Cosette anything of this if Valjean did not allow it. The old man had been through too much in his life to have to face Cosette with all the knowledge of the past between then. He knew that Cosette would not forgive her father because she would not see the need for forgiveness. She would accept him and love him. Her heart would break over his suffering and nobody wanted that. She would survive the pain, if Valjean ever chose to tell her, but her pain would hurt all of them and he doubted that Valjean would ever be able to bring himself to do that.

He would not tell Cosette but he had to hope that he looked convincing enough that Valjean believed that he would and would acquiesce to his plan. He believed that he had weakened Valjean's resolve, which was never very strong in the first place in this matter as evidenced by the many times he had had to leave Cosette's side suddenly, but he would need that one final push to allow himself to have this.

He had once arrived at the doorstep of his father only to find him dead and it too late to fix any of the mistakes of the past. He had not realized how much that situation resembled this one but he would be damned if he made the same mistakes twice. Now that he knew, he would not do that to Cosette.

There was a dangerous look in Valjean's eyes then, a look that reminded Marius that this man had once been extremely dangerous and very likely still was. Then it passed and he slumped. "What do you want of me?"

"I want you to come with me to see Cosette right now," Marius said simply. "I want you to stay past your usual time and eat supper with us. I want you to stay."

"I…" Valjean was quiet for a long time. He wanted this, Marius knew, even if he felt that he should not have it. But it was difficult to argue with somebody that a thing was in their best interest if they did not share that belief and now there was a threat, however fictitious, of unpleasant consequences if he did not just give in. Having to threaten his father-in-law to come with him was really not an auspicious sign but there were worse moments in their relationship. That…was probably not a good sign, either, come to think of it.

But he knew that the minute Valjean saw Cosette and she had Marius' own support then the battle would be won. He just needed to get Valjean there.

"Very well. I will come with you tonight."

It was clear that Valjean was only partially conceding and still fully expected to leave at the end of the night. And if he were allowed to leave, who knew when he would come back? He would have a lot of dark, lonely hours to convince himself of all sorts of absurdities about it being best for him to stay away.

"I would appreciate if you would call Cosette by her name instead of this 'Madame Pontmercy' business," Marius continued, hoping he wasn't pressing his look but knowing that that needed to be addressed at some point and that as long as he was allowed to distance himself from Cosette in such a way the danger would not be over.

"I cannot do that."

"And why not?" Marius demanded.

"It would be most improper. She is a married woman now. She is Madame Pontmercy. I must respect that," Valjean said simply.

"She is Madame Pontmercy legally and to the rest of the world but she is Cosette to me and to my grandfather and aunt and they know and love her far less than you do," Marius pointed out. "You are her father and her father cannot call her 'Madame Pontmercy.'"

"You know that that is not true, I am nowhere close to her father," Valjean said heavily.

"You are her father or at least her uncle she has known as her father to literally everyone in the world except for you and me," Marius replied. "And I see you as her father as well as mine. And I do warn you that, having missed out on having a father for so much of my life, I do not intend to give up the one that fate has decided to grant me."

"Monsieur Pontmercy-"

"We will get to Marius yet," Marius interrupted. "But first, Cosette."

"It would be improper," Valjean said desperately.

"Only in your eyes. You say that you are so concerned with making sure that there is not the slightest bit of impropriety surrounding Cosette? You may not have noticed this but there is already talk about how Cosette calls her father 'Monsieur Jean' and how he calls her 'Madame Pontmercy' in turn. One day, someone might be tempted to try and figure out why."

"She has…already stopped slipping up in that regard," Valjean began haltingly. "Do you really believe that…"

"I do. It will take her no time at all to call you father again and mean it," Marius said confidently.

"Cosette."


	4. Bringing in the Big Guns

Cosette was sitting in the garden, her face tilted towards the sun. She was thoroughly enjoying this beautiful spring day. Her grandfather had told her that Marius had gone out and that he did not know when he would be back and he would not say where he went. Oh, he claimed not to know but he had had such a mad twinkle in his eyes that she knew that he was enjoying keeping the secret.

She could not imagine what Marius and their grandfather would want to keep from her and have such fun doing so. She concluded, therefore, that Marius was planning a surprise for her and it was only good manners to let herself be surprised. As such, she was waiting in the garden for her husband to return.

Her grandfather was also sitting in the garden, in a chair placed very close to the house, reading a newspaper and grumbling as usual over the stories he found there. He did not usually sit out in the garden but she thought the fresh air would be good for him.

"Cosette?"

At the sound of her husband's voice, Cosette looked over at him with a dazzling smile. She rose to greet him and he met her on the way. Their kiss was shorter than it usually was and Cosette was puzzled until she noticed that Marius had not arrived alone. She flushed and turned to greet this new arrival. She stopped short on seeing who it was, however.

It was her father that was her uncle that was Monsieur Jean. She had been expecting him to come today but this was earlier than his usual time and he usually insisted on seeing her in that horrid little room. Was this the surprise? Marius had gone to convince Monsieur Jean to come and see them like a normal person would and not insist on hiding away? She felt a wave of love wash over her and she squeezed his hand before stepping closer to Monsieur Jean.

It had been so difficult to think of him as Monsieur Jean at first since she had spent her entire life calling him 'Papa' but he had left so abruptly without answering any of her questions on the matter when she tried to call him that. She had felt obligated to just not call him anything after that. She had been so frightened when she slipped up and called him 'Papa' one day. He had looked so happy but had corrected her and she had forced a laugh and finally conceded to call him Monsieur Jean and he had stayed. She knew that she would inevitably slip up again if she continued to think of him as her father and so she forced herself to think of him as Monsieur Jean. He was still her father and must still care for her if he always came. If he wanted to act as though he were no longer her father then it hurt but she knew that she had to accept him on his terms if she didn't want him to go away again.

Still, he never seemed happy when she called him Monsieur Jean.

The man in question was watching her uncertainly and she just could not understand why. When had she ever given him the impression she was anything less than pleased to see him?

Her smiled turned gentle and reassuring. "How wonderful that you have come!"

"Why don't you two take a turn about the garden?" Marius suggested. "I have something that I must do and will join you in a few minutes."

Monsieur Jean did not agree to this but it was more important that he did not say no, he just stood there waiting to see what she had to say.

"That does sound delightful," Cosette said enthusiastically.

A little of the tension left Monsieur Jean's shoulders at this. Did he really think that she would not want to? She suddenly remembered that her grandfather was out in the garden as well and good manners dictated that she invite him to go walk with them. She turned to him. "Will you walk with us, Grandfather?"

He had put down his newspaper and was now watching them unapologetically though she could not guess why. "I'm too old for such things. I may sit in this garden chair until the end of my days."

"You took a turn with Cosette just yesterday," Marius reminded him.

"I've aged since then," her grandfather explained.

Marius looked incredulous. "By one day!"

"Older is older, my boy," her grandfather said authoritatively.

"What will you do when it rains if you're just going to sit here forever?" Marius pressed.

Her grandfather considered this. "Basque can carry me in. You may have to help but I'm sure you won't mind since you're so concerned."

Marius just shook his head and went inside.

Cosette took Monsieur Jean's arm and gently steered him towards the path she usually took when traversing the garden. She tried to remember the last time they had walked together like this. Not since she had been married, certainly. He had been adamant in only seeing her in that dingy little room that it almost seemed as though he was trying to relegate himself to the shadows.

She struggled to remember if they had walked together after Marius had been injured. To her dismay, she found that she simply could not remember. She had been so consumed with worry and heartbroken for him and in love that she really hadn't paid much attention to much of anything else and it had been much the same in those few precious weeks they had met in her garden. Now she blushed at having had no chaperone but they had done nothing wrong (only one single kiss!) and she regretted nothing. She couldn't.

Perhaps it was perfectly natural to forget the rest of the world when you were young and in love but it was not terribly practical and spending so much of her time with Marius now, with the both of them belonging to each other, she was getting better at seeing others when Marius was there. It helped immensely that, unlike Monsieur Jean and her aunt, her grandfather was never content to allow himself to be ignored.

While she was pondering, the walk went on in silence but it was comfortable to be with him. Monsieur Jean looked quietly pleased though still not at ease and was looking more at her than at the garden. She was rather flattered, being well-aware of his love for nature and gardens in particular.

"Do you like the garden?" she asked.

Monsieur Jean looked around vaguely. "Oh, yes. It is very nice."

"It is very nice?" Cosette repeated, fixing him with a teasing look.

"It is very nice," Monsieur Jean reiterated, a little puzzled.

"I agree," Cosette told him. "But is 'it is very nice' really all you have to say about the garden?"

Monsieur Jean waited for her to continue.

"P-Monsieur Jean, you love gardens," she pointed out. She usually did not call him 'Monsieur Jean' but she had to cover up the fact she had almost called him 'Papa.' It was always harder to remember that she was not allowed to call him that anymore when they were talking of the past and walking in gardens was something she was far more used to doing with him than with Marius.

"One does not have to speak a great deal on a subject in order to love it," Monsieur Jean returned.

"Perhaps not," Cosette allowed. "But I remember how not an hour of our allotted time together in the convent passed without you making at least some sort of remark about gardening and on our walks in the Luxembourg you taught me a great deal on that."

"I spoke of much in the Luxembourg," Monsieur Jean replied after a moment. "Sometimes I do not know how I found so much to speak of. Perhaps I used up all of my words there."

"I wouldn't mind if you had to repeat them," Cosette told him softly. "You certainly never seem to run out of words when we are together, though we do seem to spend an awful lot of time on my husband."

"Your husband is a good man and it is only polite to speak of a subject that your conversational partner is interested in," he said.

"That is true," she agreed. "Which is why we were speaking of gardens. You were so happy there in the convent. I only saw you a little every day so perhaps it was the rarity of our visits that made you so happy when I saw you but you were far happier there than when we left."

It could not just be the single hour that they had together as she and Monsieur Jean hardly had longer than that nowadays and he never looked as if he were truly happy, not unless she was doing something appropriately daughterly that he was soon to correct her for.

"I did enjoy the convent," Monsieur Jean freely admitted. "The sisters were good, innocent women of God and being around them was an inspiration. I also very much enjoyed my position as a gardener."

"I had suspected as much," Cosette said, nodding to herself. "But if you were so happy there then why did we leave?"

"It was for your sake, Ma-" Abruptly he cut himself off.

He had been about to call her Madame or Madame Pontmercy and had stopped himself. That was a good thing was it not? She tried not to let her sudden sense of hopefulness show too much on her face.

"My sake?" she asked instead.

"If we had stayed then you would have taken the vows because that would have been all you had known," Monsieur Jean elaborated. "A nun is a noble calling but I would not have you become one because you knew no other way of life. I wanted to give you the chance to see what else the world had to offer and here we are."

"I do not think I would have made a good nun," Cosette said, unconsciously shivering. "They were very…severe."

"That they were," Monsieur Jean agreed.

"Your love of gardens meant it was no surprise when we always took walks in the Luxembourg but I must say that I did wonder why you never did anything with our garden in the Rue Plumet," Cosette said consideringly.

"Ah, that was not our garden but your garden," he corrected. "It was not my place."

"I never did much with it as far as gardening went but I did like to stay out there." She smiled at him. "I suppose I inherited your love of nature."

He was quiet for a long moment. "There are worse habits you could have picked up from me."

Like a habit of never answering questions she thought but did not say. Instead, she pressed him to give a more detailed opinion about their garden and listened happily to him speak about that until Marius came back outside. However reluctant he sometimes was to begin speaking, once he had started on the subject of gardening then he never seemed to run out of things to say and Cosette had yet to notice him repeating himself.

Marius had taken longer than she had expected though, to be fair, she had not known exactly what it was that he had been doing. He smiled at the two of them as they walked over to him, arm in arm. Some of the tension returned to Monsieur Jean's body at the sight of Marius but he did not pull away.

"Did you have a nice walk?" he asked pleasantly.

Cosette nodded. "Oh, yes! He was telling me all sorts of useful things that I had not known about our garden."

"I must confess that I am not much of a gardener myself but I can at least appreciate beauty," Marius said fondly. "Or at least I can now. A few years back, not as many as I would like, I picked what I believed to be a flower and gave it to my aunt on her birthday and found out that it was actually a weed."

"Weeds can be beautiful sometimes," Cosette said loyally.

"They can be," Marius agreed meaningfully. "Who decides what is and is not a weed anyway? It's a purely subjective term that refers to a plant that is not desirous. Where the rest of society may see a weed I have looked further and seen the use of such things."

"Oh, that reminds me of your nettle speech, P-Monsieur Jean!" Cosette exclaimed excitedly. "Perhaps you know more of gardening than you believe you do, Marius."

Marius exchanged a meaningful look with Monsieur Jean though Cosette did not understand why. "Nettle speech?"

"He says that nettles can be extremely useful and goes off to list just how many ways he can think of to make use of them, and there are a lot, and concludes that there are no bad plants or bad men, just specimens of both that have been neglected and become harmful."

"Did he now," Marius said, greatly interested. "I must say, I agree with that."

"You aren't being particularly subtle," her grandfather called out.

"I was not trying to be subtle," Marius called back.

"Good."

"Subtle or not, I don't understand what else you might be talking about besides nettles," Cosette told him.

"It doesn't matter," Marius replied. "Did he tell you what we were talking about back before I brought him here?"

Cosette turned to look at Monsieur Jean. "No, he didn't."

There was a faintly panicked look in his eye. "It's not important."

"Not important?" Marius demanded. "Not important? You really do not know how to be thanked, do you? As if thanks are enough! Cosette, your father saved my life."

Several things happened to Cosette all at once.

The first was the words 'your father', spoken by Marius for the first time since before the wedding. It was like she was being granted permission to claim him as her father once more and she did not intend to cede that right again so easily. The second was the realization that her father hadn't tried to deny Marius and, upon careful examination, she discovered that he had just completely frozen. The third was when she processed those words.

"What? When did this happen?" she cried out, greatly alarmed. "Are you alright? What happened?"

"I'm perfectly fine, Cosette," Marius said gently, spreading his arms to prove to her that he was fine. "This was nearly a year ago now. At the barricades."

The barricades. Would those two words never cease to fill her with dread? It took her a moment to realize what he meant because the idea was just so incomprehensible.

"My father saved you at the barricade? He was the person you have been looking for for all this time? Why didn't he tell you? He had to have known you were looking. And how did you find out? Why was he even there? I never knew! Oh, Papa, why did you never tell me that you saved my Marius and could have died? You might have died and I would have never known what happened!" Cosette exclaimed.

Her father looked a little overwhelmed. "You were asleep when I left. I did not want to worry you."

"You could have died. It was only fitting that I should be worried!"

"I survived and so did," he hesitated, "so did Marius. I had my own reasons for not telling him, reasons that I have already discussed with him."

"I finally found someone who saw him carrying me," Marius told her. "And he didn't tell anyone because he believes that good work should be done for the sake of doing good work alone and so while it is appropriate to thank others he is hesitant about accepting thanks himself."

"Yes, exactly that," her father said, a strange look on his face. Perhaps he was surprised that Marius understood him so well. He certainly seemed to be understanding him better than Cosette was these days. She could not find it within herself to be jealous, however, because she loved them both so dearly and hoped that this newfound understanding of theirs would only lead to good things for all.

"He really should have left you a note explaining in case you had noticed that he was gone. He was gone for a whole day though perhaps he had not intended to be gone for so long," Marius continued.

Cosette closed her eyes, pained. "I didn't even notice. I stayed in my room all day and worried about the future. You could have died, Papa, and I-I should have noticed."

"I am relieved that you did not," her father said firmly. Even now he was brightening every time she called him that and he had not corrected her once. He had yet to call her Cosette but she was optimistic. "I did not want to worry you on my account."

She thought of telling him that she would always worry on his account but decided against it because, while this was very true, it would just make him feel guilty when he had been off saving her now-husband.

"It probably slipped his mind, too, in the shock of discovering my existence and deciding to risk his own life to try and save mine though he had no idea what I looked like," Marius added. "And once he came back there was little need to worry you. And the truth is out now."

"Papa," Cosette said quietly.

"Yes, Cosette?"

There was something pleasantly painful in her chest just then. "Papa, I want you to know that I think you are the most wonderful man I've ever known. I'm not just saying that because of what you did for Marius but hearing about that makes me realize that I do not say it as often as I should."

"Oh, Cosette." He looked so overwhelmed then that she threw her arms around him.

Despite the fact that he was there outside of their usual room and had not once tried to leave, the fact that she had been calling him 'Papa' instead of 'Monsieur Jean' with no correction, the fact that he had even called her 'Cosette' instead of 'Madame Pontmercy', she was still a little worried that he would pull away.

He didn't, though, and Cosette knew that all she needed to know about this moment was that it was here and it was good and the details about why and how it had come to be simply didn't matter.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That night dinner was wonderful with all of Cosette's family at the same table for once and, though she couldn't really recall what was discussed, it struck her as the best meal she had ever had.

Her father kept attempting to leave but then Marius or, surprisingly, her grandfather kept distracting him and eventually Marius said it was too late for him to walk all the way back to the Rue de l'Homme Armé and so her father was actually staying the night with them.

It was almost all the way it should have been from the beginning. She didn't understand but that was perfectly fine as long as that didn't change.

When they got back to their bedroom, Marius looked very seriously at her.

"Cosette, you have no idea how sorry I am."

"Sorry?" Cosette asked, stunned. This was the very last thing she had been expecting. "Marius, what on Earth have you to be sorry for? You managed to somehow talk some sense into my father and he's letting me call him my father and calling me Cosette and he stayed for so long that he's even sleeping under our roof now! I should be thanking you on my hands and knees, not listening to you try to apologize!"

"All of this is true," Marius conceded, looking terribly upset. "Do not think I have a problem with being acknowledged for my good deeds like your father."

"Then what is it?" Cosette inquired.

"All of this has been going on for weeks now. Ever since the wedding, really, when he refused to move in and right after when he started doing those strange things…I knew it was going on. I saw it happening and I knew how much it was hurting you. But I just let it happen and I shouldn't have and so I'm sorry."

"Marius, you're not responsible for my father's choices any more than I am," Cosette said firmly.

"No, that is true," Marius agreed. "But today I decided that enough was enough and went there with the intention of bringing your father back with me. It took awhile to convince him but I managed in the end."

"I'm glad," Cosette said, sighing. "I just…I wish I understood."

"Your father has been alone except for you for many years, Cosette," Marius said gently. "And you are his only child. I think he just didn't know how he would fit into your life anymore now that you're married and he…overreacted."

"He did." Cosette closed her eyes and took a deep breath, feeling Marius beginning to rub her back. "He made himself so miserable, I could tell, and he hurt me, too."

"I could see that," Marius replied. "And that's why I had to put a stop to it. I'm just thankful that it worked."

"Marius, we can't let him slip away from us again," Cosette said earnestly. "Things won't be the exact same, they can't be, but different doesn't always have to be bad and I'm happier in a world where everyone I love can just live together under one roof."

"And I'm happiest in a world where you are at your happiest," Marius replied, kissing her gently on the forehead. "So it's decided. Your father is moving in whether he likes it or not."

"That's a little…ominous," Cosette noted.

"We should probably phrase it differently when we explain it to him," Marius agreed. "But he will be happy here, I know he will. We just have to keep at him until he's convinced that his being here will make us happy, too."

"I think I'm up for the challenge."


	5. Happiness at Last

Jean Valjean had woken that morning convinced he'd dreamed the events of the previous day. Marius had come and he had forgiven him. He had waved aside all objections (and Valjean had had a long time to think of many reasons why he could not be happy with them) and insisted that Valjean return. He had sworn so passionately that Cosette still loved him as her father and missed him. He had said that by staying away he was dimming Cosette's joy. He had persuaded him to return and Valjean had had the best evening he had had for a very long time.

And it had only taken Marius calling Valjean Cosette's father once before Cosette enthusiastically did the same.

They had treated him like a cherished member of the family and did not let him hide himself away in a corner. They kept putting him off when he tried to leave and ultimately he had stayed the night.

It could not be, though. It was everything he had ever wanted from the moment he had accepted that he had to let Cosette go, that she and her husband would not let him fade away. And he would, he knew, fade away without her. Already he could feel the beginnings of it and he still saw her every day.

He had almost not had the strength to go through with his confession, so much had he wanted what he had dreamt of last night. That was the trouble with pleasant dreams. They turned to dust come morning and there was a new ache to be borne.

But…He was not in his room in the Rue de l'Homme Armé. He was in a room that he had dreamt of often. He dreamed almost every night that he had been able to ignore the dictates of his conscience at the last temptation and stayed to live with Marius and Cosette. He was in that room now. Was he even awake?

He did not know. What he did know was that, dream or not, there was no point in staying in bed. He rose and dressed himself, deciding that this must definitely be a dream because his clothes were in the wardrobe.

He went downstairs and saw Marius sitting in an armchair reading.

Marius looked up at the sound of him on the stairs and brightened. "Good morning, Father. I trust you've slept well?"

"Father?" Valjean repeated bemused.

Marius nodded. "This isn't the first time I've called you that."

"No, that is true," Valjean allowed. "But that was…not a habit you acquired."

Marius grimaced. "I let you trick me into believing you were a bad man, you mean. I'm torn between apologizing to you again for that or asking you to apologize to me for allowing me to be so unknowingly ungrateful to my savior. I believe that you would actually apologize and want my apology for this about as much as I want yours so I shall do neither."

"I didn't trick you," Valjean replied calmly. "There was nothing I said that was not true."

"Perhaps not," Marius conceded. "But you really need to learn that confessions involve not just confessing the bad things you don't want to confess but admitting to the good things as well."

"Do you really think that I will need to make another confession, to you or to anyone else?" Valjean asked, surprised. He could not think of a reason why he would need to since he had resolved to never tell Cosette of his past and she was the only person that he spoke with regularly.

"Personally I do not believe so," Marius replied. "I'm not convinced you've actually done anything wrong since 1815 but I'm sure that if there is a way to confess to somebody else about anything then you will find a way."

Valjean bowed his head. "You go too far again. Even if you believe me to have more good than bad in me, and you are certainly welcome to your opinion, no one is perfect and 1815 was a very long time ago." He thought of Fantine but of course Marius had asked that he not be told of her and Valjean would not have dreamt of mentioning her plight regardless.

"You may be correct," Marius said, unconcerned. "But I have spent too many weeks thinking that you were the worst kind of sinner so perhaps I am due a few weeks of believing that you are a saint. Cosette's believed that since long before I met her."

"Cosette is…different," Valjean said slowly. He was not a saint, not even close, but he did not mind if she thought so. Just as long as he never managed to disappoint her by revealing his clay feet.

"That she is, Father," Marius agreed with a loving sigh.

"You've called me that again," Valjean noted.

"I did say that I was going to do that, didn't I?" Marius asked rhetorically. "Well, no matter. If I did not already say that then I am saying it now."

"I am not your father," Valjean said stupidly.

Marius gave an exaggerated sigh. "That, dear Father, is very hurtful."

Seeing Valjean continue to just stare at him, he elaborated.

"I am not sure if you have noticed this yet but you will in the future. Cosette calls my aunt her aunt and my grandfather her grandfather. It is entirely too common for married people to claim their spouse's relatives as their own, particularly if they are fond of them. And I have been unfortunately deprived of a father my entire life so I do not intend to reject the one I now see before me!"

Valjean took a moment to process that before responding. "You are…fond of me?"

Marius sighed. "I understand why you sound so skeptical, Father. You are aware that before my wedding there was always a certain coldness between us. I believe that on your part there was the knowledge that you would soon half-confess your past to me and withdraw as much as you were able to from Cosette's life and so you resented me as the one who would inadvertently destroy your happiness whilst claiming my own. And while I know that you want nothing but Cosette's happiness, it could not have been pleasant for her to have been so happy while you were so miserable. On my part…I had not understood it at the time. I thought perhaps it was because you reminded me of the barricades. Later I thought that it was the fact that I had somehow just known you were a convict."

He laughed to himself. "Ah the folly of youth. And it was only yesterday that I was corrected! But perhaps it is like my grandfather says: older is older. I have recently become aware that the father and the lover are natural enemies and I think that perhaps it was this. I wanted to marry Cosette and you wanted to keep her with you. It appeared that our goals were mutually exclusive. And then, after…I never saw you but Cosette told me much of the kind things you had said about me. I confess that I rather suspected that you said those things but to get Cosette to stay with you longer and, in case I heard them, to try and soften my feelings for you so that I would not go back on my promise. And perhaps there is some truth in that, I don't know, or at least the first because you were dreadfully stubborn yesterday about the second. It does not matter, though, because you trusted me with your daughter and so you could not have thought too poorly of me."

Valjean said nothing. What was there to say? All he had had to think of Marius was that he loved Cosette and would make her a good husband. The rest of it was irrelevant though he had come to appreciate Marius more over the past few months watching Cosette's sheer blissful joy at his presence in her life.

"I imagined all sorts of terrible scenarios. I even thought you were a murderer, as you well know! But now that we have come to an accord on Cosette and I know that you are far closer to a saint than you would have anyone else believe, I think I can honestly say that I am fond of you and do see you as a father," Marius concluded. "And it turns out that we can both get what we want with regards to Cosette and she will get what she wants with regards to us!"

He couldn't be dreaming. His dreams would not be so cruel as to dangle everything he had ever wanted right out in front of him like that.

"Marius," he said gently.

Marius' eyes lit up. "You called me Marius!"

Valjean thought of apologizing and correcting himself, as he had when he had mistakenly called Cosette by her name instead of 'Madame Pontmercy' shortly after her wedding. Marius would just keep pressuring him to refer to him as his name instead of 'Monsieur Pontmercy', however, as he had threatened to do yesterday. And the most important thing had been distancing himself for Cosette and that had already failed. He could not say that he particularly minded that, despite his best efforts, Marius had forced his hand. If Valjean could call her Cosette then he could call him Marius.

"So I did."

"Oh, these past few weeks have been absolutely wonderful for me but I did have the worry about your seeing Cosette to dim my joy a little and she had the fact she was missing you and your more familial relationship – but don't look at me like that! You were trying to protect her, I'm not trying to make you feel guilty!" Marius exclaimed. "Now that we are beyond all of that, I don't see what could possibly stop us from achieving a state of perfect happiness."

Valjean rather doubted that such a thing was possible. Even before he had dared entertain any thoughts of losing Cosette, he had still feared discovery and Cosette somehow finding out the truth or growing dissatisfied with the meager life he could give her.

But perhaps for innocents like Marius and Cosette such things were indeed possible.

"I cannot live here."

"You keep saying that but I still don't see why not," Marius complained. "You obviously want to stay here. We want you here. Even my grandfather was complaining recently that he had gotten used to you and then you just disappeared on him and he does not readily become attached to people. Any concern over your secret is unnecessary as you won't be caught and if you are then my grandfather can get you an easy pardon. At this point, the only reason to deny us and stay away to be miserable is for the sake of being miserable. I do not see being miserable as any great virtue. It may be necessary sometimes but not here and you will just make Cosette miserable, too."

"You make it sound so easy," Valjean said wistfully.

"Easy?" Marius repeated. He shook his head. "No, after all that we have been through to get to this point just these past few months, never mind the things you may never tell me about, Madeleine, and your two terms in prison which must have been two decades in total it is not easy. Nothing, no amount of happiness that follow from that, can ever be easy. But we have come through all of that and are still standing. I think we've all earned a little happiness and now that the difficulties are gone it can be easy going forward."

"You and Cosette have certainly earned your happiness," Valjean agreed. "She suffered so terribly as a child and, as much as she loved me, she lived such an isolated existence with me because I could not risk being discovered. And you who have gone from this great house to living in the Old Gorbeau House because of your strong principles and then lost all of your friends at the barricade before a long and painful recovery. You are young and innocent and deserve better than you have known in the past."

"You may not be young and I cannot very well call you an innocent but you have gone through far more than either of us. You have been out of prison for less time than you spent in it, even if you do not count that second stint!" Marius exclaimed. "The greater the suffering the more one is deserving of happiness. You deserve to be happy, too, and I'm afraid that now I know that you're not happy on your own and know the truth about you I won't be able to be happy. And if you are not happy and I am not happy then I can't imagine how Cosette can be happy."

Valjean shook his head helplessly. "You…overstate things."

"Perhaps I do," Marius said, shrugging. "But I can't see that that's likely to change at any point in the near future so you may as well accept it. And I have no intention of accepting defeat in the matter of your moving in with us and neither does Cosette. The two of us together just barely managed to prevent it after the wedding, I hope you know."

"Why does this matter so much to you?" Valjean wondered. "This is, after all, my choice so if it makes me unhappy that is my concern. Any lingering unhappiness that Cosette feels will one day vanish. It is the natural course of events for children to lose their parents. She survived losing her mother and one day she will survive losing me too, whether she loses me today or in ten years time."

"Thirty," Marius corrected automatically. "She will always feel that pain of losing you though it will fade in time as time heals all wounds when you let it. But I believe that if pain is inevitable then it is best to face it as far into the future as you can instead of right away. And…I did mention my own father?"

"You have said that he was not in your life," Valjean agreed.

"I do not talk about this very much," Marius said a little stiffly. "My mother died when I was very young. My grandfather has his nice house and my aunt, who always obeys him, has a fortune from her mother. My grandfather is an ardent royalist. I would say almost a fanatic in years gone past. My father fought at Waterloo."

"I can see how that might make things…difficult," Valjean said delicately.

"He was a colonel in Napoleon's army," Marius said proudly. "My grandfather told my father that if he did not give me over to his care and never see me again then I would be disinherited. My father was made a baron by Napoleon, which is why I am now a baron, but after Napoleon fell none of that was honored and my father fell into poverty. My father was trying to give me the best life he could. He thought it would be best if he never saw me. It reminds me of you."

"Your father was on the wrong side of history, that is all," Valjean said gently. "He did nothing wrong. I have done much wrong. And there would have been no shame from your living with him as most of France did support the Empire at some point. It is different."

"I was deprived of a father that loved me," Marius said stubbornly. "I never met the man and never knew that he cared so if I was willing to leave my grandfather's house forever over it and would never have returned if not for Cosette and the fact that you must have found the address I left in my pocket in case my grandfather wanted my body. All I have are a few scant stories, the battle of Waterloo, and a debt to a terrible man I may never be able to discharge. Cosette has known you this past decade and loves you dearly."

"You cannot think that she would quit your home!" Valjean cried out.

"No, I don't think she will," Marius agreed. "But the point is not whether she will resent me because I rather doubt she will do that either. I just remember all too well the pain I felt at being denied the father I had never known. If I had known and loved him…I would not do that to Cosette. I do not know if you know pain like that but please do not visit that down upon her. As you have said, she is an innocent who has suffered greatly and deserves more."

Valjean had lost his father too early but it was hard to believe those days were real. Hard to remember losing his mother, too. It was a little easier to recall the loss of his sister and seven little nieces and nephews because their loss was all bound up with Toulon and he felt like he could remember every moment of those nineteen years of torment perfectly. He swallowed thickly. He understood.

"All of this was kept from me and I was left to draw my own conclusions about why my father lived and yet stayed away," Marius said pointedly.

Valjean had never stayed away from Cosette and if he had ever begun to it would be because Marius made it clear that he was not welcome. It would not be Marius' fault, though, because it was perfectly rational to want a man like him to stay far far away. If he did have to go, how would he explain it? Going on a long trip would not explain it forever. He had never wanted to hurt her. But then, he doubted that he would be able to go on for very long without Cosette in his life in at least some capacity.

"One day my grandfather received a letter from him saying that he was very sick. He had never requested to see me before and so I left in the morning. I-It only occurred to me later that I could have gone that very evening and been with him the next morning. When I arrived that evening, he was already dead. They told me that-" Here Marius' voice wobbled. "They told me that his last words were 'My son is not coming! I shall go to meet him!' and he jumped out of bed, three days with a brain fever, and ran for the door. He died right then."

"I am so sorry, Marius," Valjean said compassionately.

Marius managed a small smile. "I thank you, Father. I didn't realize how much he loved me until later. I have forgiven my grandfather but I shall never forgive what he did. And to think that I almost did the same to Cosette…I could not have lived with myself. And do not tell me that it is not the same because you were a convict because it is similar enough. Having been deprived of a father myself, I almost became one who did that to my wife. That is intolerable. And you are a good man, a man that saved me, and the only father I will ever get to have. I failed as a son once before, Father. Do not force that failure upon me again."

"I…" Valjean trailed off, uncertain. Marius had clearly suffered a great deal and he had not completely recovered. It had been several years now and he was still suffering. And he had suffered more at the barricade though that had nothing to do with Valjean. It was one thing not to intrude on their happiness but if their happiness required or at least preferred his presence then how could he say no? How could he make Cosette cry and force Marius to lose another father figure, ill-chosen though it might be? "Very well, Marius. You have convinced me. I will stay."

"You will?" Cosette asked, walking into the room just then. Her face was radiant. "This is wonderful, Papa! Oh, I'm so happy!"

Valjean started and studied her closely for signs that she had heard more than she should. He did not find any and so relaxed. He and Marius really needed to be more careful when discussing highly sensitive information when she was around because this was the second time she had walked in on them and almost discovered the truth.

Valjean smiled back at her and it came easier than it had in quite some time. "I am happy, too, child."

"I was all ready to follow you around and scold you until you had agreed but now I see that I shall not have to!" she exclaimed.

"I am sure that you shall find new things to scold me about in the future," he assured her. It was strange, perhaps, but he did enjoy it when Cosette scolded him because it was done with love and meant that she cared and that was a precious commodity.

"I suppose I will," Cosette agreed happily. "Since you will be staying here. Oh, do tell me how you like your room! I know that you said that you liked it before the wedding but you had no intention of actually staying here so you may have just been being polite. And I know that you always say that you like whatever I like but that can simply not always be true. And you are so easy-going you do not complain with no fire and black bread! Please, tell me honestly what you think of the room. If there is anything wrong with it then I shall have great fun trying to fix it."

"You are sweet to be so concerned but I swear to you faithfully that there is nothing even slightly the matter with my room," Valjean promised her. "You know how I usually live. This is far more comfortable than I am used to but I will adjust."

Cosette nodded. "I should hope so! You always did worry me terribly with your insistence on living away from the main house. I think that everyone should live as well as they are able to although I fear that we shall never agree on the matter, at least where you are concerned, Papa."

"I am willing to bow to you in this, Cosette," Valjean told her. It honestly meant no difference to him what kind of a room he had, having very few needs, but if it made Cosette happy then it made Cosette happy and that was more important than any discomfort he might have at having a room that was too good.

"I am glad," Cosette said, her smile widening.

"I do have one question, however," Valjean said slowly.

"What is it?" Marius asked.

"My clothes. I did not bring them yesterday and yet they were in my room this morning," Valjean said.

Marius attempted to hide his smile but did not quite manage it.

"Oh, do tell!" Cosette urged. It was unclear to him if she knew the secret Marius was keeping.

"Very well. When I went inside yesterday after bringing Father here, I left partially to give the two of you time to talk alone and partially to arrange for some men to bring over a little of your possessions. I knew you would need new clothes and when you eventually agreed to move in it would be easier if the job was already part-way done," Marius explained.

Valjean wondered how he was supposed to feel about this interference. However he was supposed to feel, what he actually felt was loved. "You did not know that I would move in."

Marius and Cosette exchanged a pointed look.

"I knew."

"We should sit down to breakfast soon so that we can be done eating when the men come to bring the rest over," Cosette told them.

Valjean blinked. "You were having the rest of it brought over today? You did not know that, even if I did acquiesce, that the matter would be settled so quickly."

"I'm the optimistic sort," Marius declared.

"Besides," Cosette told him, laying her hand on his arm, "when it comes to matters of the heart we are both of us willing to do what we must."

That sort of thinking could be dangerous. It led men to their deaths and him to his nineteen years in prison. But it had also, eventually, led him to this and to them. And he had long since turned his back on hating and opened himself to love, how long could he have really resisted this with no one telling him to not get too attached and to keep his distance?

Marius and Cosette were young, rich, and in love and they would be happy. That they would want to share that happiness with him was more than he had ever dared hope for. He would accept their gift and do his best to make their lives better, the way that he had always done.

And maybe, finally, they could all just be happy.

Valjean said a silent prayer of gratitude for his wonderfully stubborn and loving children and then followed them into the dining room.


End file.
